Outcasting. As in, certain types of PVP were acceptable (faction vs. faction), but PVP outside of that (like say an Empire guy killing an Empire guy), would cause the attacker to become "red" or "outcast." Every single character on that person's account, including other servers I think, was then outcasted, and attackable by everyone without any sort of penalty. I think it was similar to Lineage 2's system, except it flagged the account and not the player.

It had its holes, and I don't remember the exact specs anymore, but I remember Raph saying somewhere it was changed to the TEF because it was thought most people would object to being PVP'ed even if it affected the attacker in this way.

That got tossed out because frankly it was just another implementation of "player justice" and everyone and their dog knows this doesn't work. Hell griefers would take being outcast as a badge of honor.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.

That got tossed out because frankly it was just another implementation of "player justice" and everyone and their dog knows this doesn't work. Hell griefers would take being outcast as a badge of honor.

Noone knows if it would work, because noone has actually put in a real outcast system. Those half-assed UO and L2 outcast systems don't count.

I definitely think it could work. You just need to implement the systems to make outcasts true pariahs, instead of a d00d m4rK3r.

Outcasting is for sissies. If Frontier 1859 ever comes to life, it will apparently have player-run courts of law and PERMADEATH for characters sentenced to death. That takes balls - but of course that game is apparently just ideas as of now, most likely the scope and features will be stripped down to nothingness if they ever get around to implementing any of it.

Sure, games are patterns. But a good many, and possibly most, players prefer an easy, repetitive pattern.

No, it just means that the reward system built into the brain is more complex than he leads on. Not that his suggestion is incorrect, just incomplete.

Example on a repeditive action; slot machines. They're the most popular item in any casino, and arguably the most boring game of all (push the button to play, and just wait for your result). The reward? Your payout - EQ got this right with the "ding" also.

-RoacKing of Ravens

"Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us." -SC

Anyone could attack anyone.If you pkilled someone and they didn't enjoy it, they could "yank your PK license." This would make it so you could no longer initiate PvP.If you felt that it was done unjustifiably, well, you could go to the local player government and ask for your license back. The governments actually would have access to the log of the events leading up to the kill.Some govts would forgive anyone. Some would be honorable. SOme would change over time.The forgiveness only applied to that govt's territory.

So yeah, it was a form of player justice, but not one I have seen before.

--------

On sticking to easy patterns--I actually do spend a fair bit of time on this in the book...

See, as many holes as are in it, I dig the outcasting system Raph is talking about, at least as a first step. I think it's a much more elegant, organic system than either the TEF thing that made it into SWG or the one they are switching to.

But I can also see how it would make some developers, suits and other people wet their pants at the thought they might actually be killed by another player when they weren't expecting it.

I think had you made PVP servers that had that rules set on it, and PVE-only (or factional TEF type servers) servers as well, it would have been a much better design.

So, Raph gave his follow-up talk yesterday, where he examined the funamental units or "atoms" of game design, and how they are assembled together, and what sort of notation system we would use to describe them. Unfortunately the lecture was far more complex than I can summarize here. In the end, he failed to come up with a satisfactory notation/graph system for design, but he did come up with a lot of interesting and possibly useful tools which we may be able to extend upon in the coming years to actually come up with something practical. Look for the slides to appear on Raph's web site or the Theory of Fun web site in the coming days and then you'll be able to judge for yourselves.

That sounds like you'd have a full-time job justifying every single kill you ever made in PvP. I'm sure some asshats would make it their purpose to be litigous if they ever went down in a fight.

Yes... I forgot to mention that a gvt could give blanket kill permission to people within their territory too, so you wouldn't necessarily get any resource on those cases. and you would be able to see the rules before you entered someone's territory...

That sounds like you'd have a full-time job justifying every single kill you ever made in PvP. I'm sure some asshats would make it their purpose to be litigous if they ever went down in a fight.

Yes... I forgot to mention that a gvt could give blanket kill permission to people within their territory too, so you wouldn't necessarily get any resource on those cases. and you would be able to see the rules before you entered someone's territory...

Basically, it's mostly automating the policing, in a way...

This, with some way to set 'we are at war with gov't X, anyone in our gov't is allowed to kill anyone in X gov't', and similar thing for guilds, to get rid of the hassle of combat with a point... I can see that working somewhat well. It actually a variation of plans I'd thought up, tho I wasn't planning on having human 'judges' for disputes.

Alkiera

"[I could] become the world's preeminent MMO class action attorney. I could be the lawyer EVEN AMBULANCE CHASERS LAUGH AT. " --Triforcer

Welcome to the internet. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you in a character assassination on Slashdot.

There was something like this on a server-wide basis which I saw playing M59. I was reading the proceedings of the political record (it was a logfile you could pull up and read in one particular building in one town), and it quickly became evident that first one faction would elect the Justicar, who would pardon that faction's murderers, and then another faction would elect the Justicar, who would pardon that faction's murderers, etc...

It was actually pretty neat to read, it gave the game a sense of history, even if it was a history of twisting the mechanics to serve the ends of various groups of killers. Which really isn't too different from how I've heard the whole Earp/Clanton Tombstone dispute described some places, except they had permadeath...

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.

As for games are saving the human race, meh. I think someone read too much Orson Scott Card. The problem isn't the games, it's the society surrounding the games. Fix that, include others, and stop gunning for nerd factor.

It may sound corny but if you approach it from the right direction it isn't.

1) Precedents include things like Lego MindStorms and the Sony Aibo dog. Take that some kind of thing and transpose it into a game or virtual world with a real world application or a problem to solve (build a Mars rover or stop erosion of Louisiana). Now add the new PPU (Physics Processing Unit) board that Ageia is working on. It's really all about the hack factor. Give people the tools to work with and see what they come up with.

2) On the brain. Say 100,000 kids buy and play a sim space elevator video game. Twenty years from now those kids will be adults and some of them will be in positions of authority. What happens when a funding request, grant, or project for space elevators comes across the desk of Joe Bureaucrat/Head Scientist/Senator? Joe might be more inclined to approve such a request if he has fond memories of playing a sim space elevator video game as a kid.

3) The SETI@home style projects. This is just conjecture but if there was a similar project to solve a scientific problem which required a human to look at endless reams of data to detect a pattern it could be transformed into a video game (or if a computer could do it but a human could do it faster). Think Tetris/Puzzle Pirates/Bejeweled but with real world data pattern matching behind eye candy graphics.

And lastly where video games are already being used is by the military for language and situation training. Whatever article it was that was talking about the military stripping out all of the weapons in the Unreal engine and using it for language and body language situation training for soldiers dealing with Iraqi's.

1) Precedents include things like Lego MindStorms and the Sony Aibo dog.

That's a good point, because both of those are saving the world as we speak.

Lots of activities can be self-improving, and video games are one of those. THAT'S IT. Soccer can be self-improving. So can D&D. So can watching TV with the right mindset.

A lot of people watch awful TV with the wrong mindset and it is not self-improving at all. Same with video games. I don't think the blockbuster workers I overheard discussing the drive-by levels of GTA are really being saved and improved by video games.

It's what you make out of the activity. Nearly any activity can lead to self-improvement if you approach it the right way. I don't see anything special about games, or video games in particular.---

That said, a pet peeve of mine is people who think that say reading is a wonderful self-improvement activity. It isn't. Most people who read read a lot of trash, and the people reading self-help books are probably actually getting dumber and less independent. Reading, like most things, is what you put into it. You can read trashy romance novels 3 a day for your entire life and not have learned anything or grown in any way.

There is nothing wrong in working on games, or comic books, or whatever. It really depends on what gamesm what comic books, and how the consumer approaches them. But I wouldn't go off on the fact the Super Mario is helping save the world any more than Connect 4 or Jump-Rope is.

vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.

Actually, the majority of VOCAL PVP'ers fit into your mold of hardcore PVP people. Since PVP is about competition, you will find a larger percentage of PVPer's, even the non-vocal ones are in the mold of "if it goes to 11, 10 won't do" crowd.

"if it goes to 11, 10 won't do" is exactly reason why PvE and PvP games lumped in one are not so good in PvP aspect. PvEers want unlimited advancment - they want 99 and beyond and PvP can't be done with 10 if 99 is possible to achive.

If you pkilled someone and they didn't enjoy it, they could "yank your PK license." This would make it so you could no longer initiate PvP.

Define "enjoy" in context of loosing PvP fight. People hate loosing, there isn't good reason NOT to "yank your PK license" from someone who just killed. If you have even slightest intention of making this system work you will want to add some restrictions on who and how can "yank your PK license"

Overall - I don't think this system will ever work. Its too complex, involves too many undesriable activities for all players involved and overall too hard to implement right.

Anyone could attack anyone.If you pkilled someone and they didn't enjoy it, they could "yank your PK license." This would make it so you could no longer initiate PvP.If you felt that it was done unjustifiably, well, you could go to the local player government and ask for your license back. The governments actually would have access to the log of the events leading up to the kill.Some govts would forgive anyone. Some would be honorable. SOme would change over time.The forgiveness only applied to that govt's territory.

So yeah, it was a form of player justice, but not one I have seen before.

I can see so many ways to grief and abuse this system. If nothing else, you make it so that the player court spends every moment of their play time resolving disputes. It's an interesting idea on paper, I just don't know how it would work out in real life. Players are infamous for tearing holes in systems that seemed like a good idea.

I don't know, as much as some of your design choices drive me crazy, there is a part of me that would love to see what you could do given a few years, a large budget, and full control.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.

I suspect that game will have superb and very complicated crafting and economic system and not much of anything else.

Possibly, though it might be the most immersive thing ever. It'd also have a very complex PvP system which would probably steer me away from it.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.

I still think SWG's PVP system would have worked... so long as they separated the PVP-enabled servers from the PVE-only servers, or if PVP was only enabled in certain zones. Really, history has shown that mixing the two together just creates headaches for all involved.

In a nutshell complex PvP system is an oxymoron. To me best PvP system is lack of artificial rules that introduce restrains on player behavior – if you compare set of prohibitive rules and forbidden interactions between PvP and PvE games PvP game should have a lot less. In my opinion what Ralph attempted with UO with notoriety system, SWG with factions and with his later ideas he is approaching problem from the wrong end. Creating elaborate set of rules and cases of how player can and cannot behave is not needed in PvP game – you just let player do anything they want and environment allows. Now this approach will not work for just any game, a lot of PvE-centric games built in such way that allowing this kind of interaction will disrupt non-PvP elements. This is why PvP should be zone-separated and unrestricted. There aren’t any loopholes if everything is allowed, moment you start introduce overcomplicated rules and mixing PvE and PvP you drastically increase chance of it not working as intended or at all.

Lets look at Ralph’s latest idea:

] Anyone could attack anyone. If you pkilled someone and they didn't enjoy it, they could "yank your PK license." This would make it so you could no longer initiate PvP. If you felt that it was done unjustifiably, well, you could go to the local player government and ask for your license back. The governments actually would have access to the log of the events leading up to the kill. Some govts would forgive anyone. Some would be honorable. Some would change over time. The forgiveness only applied to that govt's territory.

There are number of obvious problems that stand out to me. First define “enjoy” when you just got PKed. If you loose a fight, even fair one that was justifiably started what would stop you from just “yank your PK license”? Now to fix this you have to regulate whom and how can “enjoy” PvP by adding another set of rules. Similar thing was attempted in UO with notoriety flags, while it was interesting system it give birth to countless unintended interactions, like notos or notoPKs. Second problem is with “local government” – how many people would want to be a bureaucrat reviewing ‘cases” in a mmorpg? How do you select or change this government? What is there aren’t any governments that suit your play style? Third problem how do you log “events leading up to the kill”? I don’t see this being feasible since this will require logging everything all the time. As you can see adding more rules on top of even more rules is not easy and does not guarantee to work way you expect.

Lets instead try to simplify this system and see if we can get it to work by manipulating game environment rather than introducing artificial rules.

Say you have nation-based game, something like Shadowbane, where you have nations competing over territory. Say you have barren, fertile and bliss territories. Barren territories that are your starter territories with only difference that you can stay there indefinably only things there advance a lot slower, doing any activity there is also lot less profitable and there a lot less things to do. You also have fertile territories that are your regular content and few bliss territories that are choke-full of desirable things. You can base your nation in any of these territories and get to control as large of an area as you can manage. Guilds and nations get to control areas but anyone can use any territory. Controlling territory allows you to set taxes on players, maintain NPC guards and set aggression rules and can declare anyone an enemy of various ‘threat’ levels.

Now to actual rules – anyone can attack anyone at any time.

How does this work? You give nations and guilds tools to track and control area. If they decide that certain player, guild or behavior is undesirable they can use their means to stop that activity or player. How well they can achieve this depends on how well they control territory.

Examples:

Dominant guild in control of bliss territory decided to prohibit PKing since it decreases income they receive from taxes. They control numerous and powerful guards that can be allocated to any areas they control, have a lot of ‘scouting’ outposts that can be used to track everyone and find anyone and have an ability to control any travel magic in any area. They set rules that if you attack non-nation member less than once a day you are ‘enemy’ for one hour unless you pay PKing ‘tithe’ and bounty on you is small amount of money and few weak guards are dispatched to the area to look for you and deal with you. They also set rules if you attack more than once a day or attack nation member you are permanently an enemy and strong guards dispatched to an area where you get noticed.

Backwater guild in control of poor territory decides to declare that any PKing is immoral and declare anyone doing it maximum threat enemy. Problem is that they don’t have many scouting outposts to know where problem is and don’t have that many guards at their disposal to dispatch.

... To me best PvP system is lack of artificial rules that introduce restrains on player behavior...

I cut everything else because I'm just replying to this. I'm not interested in Raph's ideas nearly so much as the ideal case you have proposed as your baseline.

"artificial rules that introduce restrains on player behavior" - This is what games in general, and computer games in particular, are. The idea doesn't work even if you say simple; as an example, tic-tac-toe is a simple system, but hardly the hieght of PvP. All games introduce restraints, the trick is to introduce the right restraints. Generally unrestrained (game physics excepted) PvP works relatively well in non-persistant games like chess and Counter Strike. It has not been notably successful in persistant games. Note that most professional sports, which are persistant game systems, have extremely elaborate and artificial rules sets, including regular game resets and team rebalancing on several levels, to counter the sorts of problems PvP has encountered in the online world.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.

There's nothing wrong or right with either of those, and arguing which one is better is pointless. They are just different.

The problem is, both of these are referred to as PvP even though they are totally different. Look at what happened on the WoW forums when they announced the honor system was gutted. A bunch of people said "you tricked me into joining a PvP server, I only joined because of the honor system) and another group called them care-bears and whatnot.

Free-for-all craziness had it's appeal, so does a structured competition. It just depends on what you are looking for. And you can deliver both in the same game, just not at the same time.

A lot PvP systems straddle the middle ground - they aren't really free-for-alls, but the attempts at structure are superficial and half-assed. Which is good for nobody.

vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.

The problem is when most people say they want unstructured PvP, they don't really want it. They want to PvP someone while they PvE (or be PvPed while PvEing themselves). And most PvE players decidedly DO NOT want that. Moreover, integrating PvE and PvP and providing balance is extremely difficult. So you get a lot of structures and restrictions that leave most PvPers unsatisfied.

"artificial rules that introduce restrains on player behavior" - This is what games in general, and computer games in particular, are.

What I was trying to say is that as an ideal mmorpg designer you create world and manipulate environemtent but do this without creating rules like "in case A you can't use ineraction B". More cases you pile up more likely you will overlook something. Example of restraining rule in a non-presistant mmorpg would be no AWP rule in CS. Example of restraining rule in a mmorpg would be you can attack only opposite faction within N levels of your own that are flaged as PvP+.

Most people are content to lose if they feel they had a reasonable chance of winning. Most people hate getting trounced on, whether if the cause is the game mechanic (level difference, getting ambushed, imbalanced mechanics, etc) or lack of skill / game knowledge.

Yet, for some reason MMOGs don't take these two factors into account. I've yet to see a good mechanic where the game supports semi-equivalency in ability. The closest that any ever really comes to are safe zones for newbies; but that's a bandaid that doesn't even cover the whole problem. I want to be able to participate in PvP at level 1; I just don't want to get turned into hamburger for trying. Or, conversely, getting chewed up doesn't qualify as "participating".

Skill is a bit harder to qualify, but there's no reason that it can't be done. There are ways to rank equivalent skill, and one should never be able to go "backwards" in tier. For example, assume 3 tiers of ranking; beginner, normal, expert. Based on certain criteria, you advance to the next tier. There should be overlapping criteria; such as getting a certain skill ranking, OR completing a certain number of fights, OR completing a certain quest, OR attaining a certain level, etc. Once advanced, you don't go back. Impose penalties for attacking down a tier(s); combat debuffs, in-game fines, etc.

The other thing, is that PvP needs to be an opt-in situation. I sometimes just want to log in and chat; let me do that. That doesn't mean I should have free reign of the game map, but if I want to poke around in my guild house or do a bit of shopping, let me. Whether this is enforced with UO-style guards, PvP- areas, or penalties (above), it doesn't matter. For other areas, PvP should be encouraged.

Not to mention, there are a whole host of arenas within which there can be PvP. What about missions (instanced?) that allow opponents with competing goals? Systems that allow players to compete for control of NPCs on a "social" level? Allow players to compete for resources (mines, farms, whatever)? Lot of things outside of straight up melee can be implimented. Or, even in down and dirty fights, there can be some sort of context for the fight - context that either encourages or discourages assaults.

But so far, no one wants to mess with any of this. Even when there are players who beg for PvP, and when people like Raph talk about how players are the coolest opponents, no one is actually spending time trying to set out a system that allows fair and fun competition between people.

I am really curious why any dev, of whom I'm sure all are geeks who were terrorized on the playground, thought that a virtual playground would be fun. Football is fun. Conflict within borders is fun. Eight year olds on a playground without an attentive teacher is not fun.

-RoacKing of Ravens

"Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us." -SC

1) Player P wants totally unrestricted wide open PVP, all the time2) Player E wants totally closed off PVE only, never wanting to compete with other players for anything besides spawns3) Player M likes both PVE and PVP, but wants to be able to choose between the two at his leisure. Depending on what side of the scale he tips towards, he is more or less inclined to accept being PVP'ed while he PVE'es, so long as he knows the danger beforehand. He enjoys the competition of PVP, but wants to have times where he doesn't have to worry about it. He doesn't always want to be outgunned, outnumbered and outexploited.

Can you guess which player is the most numerous among MMOG players? I know you can.

Look, there's nothing wrong with any of these 3 playstyles. Not a goddamn thing. One is not necessarily better, more skilled, or more important than the other. Player P and Player E can get along equally well with Player M. But Player P and Player E CANNOT CO-EXIST PEACEFULLY. They just cannot. They are on two equidistant polar opposite ends of the spectrum. Because you can't do both and make either of them reasonably satisfied.

You'll also not that since E and P are both opposite ends of the spectrum, they are also in that minority of hardcore people who ony accept it their way. There is no tolerance for the other side. Now, I'll grant you that there are probably more Player E's than there are Player P's. The market has already demonstrated this, over and over again.

But guess what? The games which have given Player M what he wants have done much better than they should have had they catered excluvisvely to E or P. Dark Age of Camelot, despite its stable release, would not have sold nearly as well or kept such a great subscriber base had it been a PVE-only game, or had it dropped all PVE for PVP. WoW had lots of things going for it besides PVE and PVP, but the PVP was not a deterrent to the people who bought the game. Because even on non-PVP servers, there is still PVP, and yet at release, the PVP servers were more populated. It's probably only now that a settling out of player population has been seen, where people leave the PVP servers because there's perhaps too much P for their taste. Games that have denied that PVP can be a draw and thus have not allowed it, such as Horizons, EQ2, Earth and Beyond, have done worse in comparison to the player M type games that have come out in the same time frame. Granted, some of those I mentioned had other problems that contributed to their lack of popularity.

You can talk about unrestricted PVP being all this and that, and you can scream at the "carebears" all you want, but you'd better realize that open PVP is always going to be a niche. PVP with rules is always going to garner more players than PVP without boundaries.

I'm not discounting the licensing of games like SWG and WoW as a factor in their sales. But the fact that, from what little information is available, both games have maintained a steady user base despite the problems shows that Player M is the majority of player out there.

I'm going to do something stupid and tell somebody what they really want. What they want isn't unrestricted PvP, because truely unrestricted PvP means I can hack the server and it is OK. None of this carebear rules stuff, if I get surprised or I might lose my tree, I can crash the server if I want.

What you really want is thematically consistant PvP. You want rules, but only so long as they make sense for the setting. You don't want to stop pursuing your enemies because they have gone into a Safehold; you want to stop pursuing your enemies because they somehow stopped you.

And if you want to be able to completely defeat the opposition, you don't want to play a persistant game. The Dark One must always be able to rise from the ashes of defeat and again threaten The Good and The Fair, because that is inherent in the nature of persistance. If that doesn't fit within the definition of what you want PvP to be, then I suggest you might perfer a nice game of chess.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.

A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation.-William Gibson

2) Player E wants totally closed off PVE only, never wanting to compete with other players for anything besides spawns

Player E sucks. He's my first target in every game. And when I kill him I make sure to tell him he should be playing Pikmin or something on his Gamecube. Yes, specifically, the Gamecube. And it can't be Resident Evil 4. Wussy. *spit*

You can talk about unrestricted PVP being all this and that, and you can scream at the "carebears" all you want, but you'd better realize that open PVP is always going to be a niche. PVP with rules is always going to garner more players than PVP without boundaries

Open PvP is a niche of mmorpgs, mmorpgs are niche of PC games that are niche of computer games that are niche of general games that are niche of entertainment activities.... Everything other than shelter, food and medicine is a niche but that does not meant that it cannot be very popular of successful. I’m surprised how few attempts are made at open-PvP games considering that PvE games take A LOT more effort in form of content and content infusions to stay popular.

Quote

Yet, for some reason MMOGs don't take these two factors into account. I've yet to see a good mechanic where the game supports semi-equivalency in ability.

I guess you skipped my post about keeping things simple. You can't fool-proof your mmorpg or only fools would want to use it. Golden age of UO PvP ended when designers attempted to come up with simple and idiot-friendly PvP system - it resulted in a system where your decisions didn't really matter and it was mostly up to the random roll. Everything was equal, everyone had an axe or a spear, GM gear and equal ability to double click opponent, yet it was less fun than watching paint dry. You simply cannon equalize for ability and number and not regress your PvP game to a point where it is just a passive GUI for a game of tic-tac-toe.

What you really want is thematically consistant PvP. You want rules, but only so long as they make sense for the setting. You don't want to stop pursuing your enemies because they have gone into a Safehold; you want to stop pursuing your enemies because they somehow stopped you.

While I want thematically consistent PvP, the very term "thematically consistent" is highly subjective. Because of that, I would break PvP'ers down into two groups using that term as the divider:

For most PvP'ers, "thematically consistent" means being able to kill at a time of their choosing. They cannot conceive of a game or virtual world without some sort of descent into all-out war. Nor can they conceive of villainous masterminds with more depth than simply killing everyone around them. PvP is their theme. In other words, they interpret "thematically consistent" to mean a theme that they invent regardless of the game milieu.

Then there are those of us who interpret "thematically consistent" as making sense in the context of a game. They want a game that resembles another world in one or more interesting ways, even if it's not really a "virtual" world. Villains do other things besides go on killing sprees for loot. That's the kind of PvP'er Raph is, I'm assuming. And because he's that kind of PvP'er, he assumes everyone is, or at least enough are that he can construct a game with free-for-all PvP without much regard for the consequences.

The fundamental difference between the groups is this: The first group plays with the primary motivation of PvP-ing, while the second group plays with the idea that PvP is only one aspect of the game world. Because of that fact alone, they cannot coexist in the same game. In games that attempt to cater to both, one group will eventually dominate the other.

I think Raph's right that implementing PvP that doesn't break the magic circle represents good game design. I just don't think the majority of PvP'ers really want this because it imposes rules on one's conduct that are too much like the real world, rules that they are trying to escape by playing an MMOG in the first place.